Creating your own

I would love to go on a bootcamp but have my wee girl with me so that is not possible really.
So I was wondering if anyone else has done this by themselves/in a wee group?
I was thinking about finding somewhere where the majority of folk speak welsh and going out everyday/organising activities where I would just speak welsh.
My wee girl is nearly 4 and is learning too so I am hoping she might join in too

I’ve not heard of anyone else who’s done exactly that, but I know a group of Bootcamp survivors including @elizabeth_j_corbett_ and @a_jay and @simonwalton and @carolynh spent some Welsh-speaking time together in the summer…

Your daughter would be very welcome, of course - I suppose the only issue is how much she would need you to be speaking English to her - if you could get away without it while others were around, that might work…?

If you end up trying it out in Gwynedd, do call in - we’re very kid-friendly and do conversations in Welsh as well… :sunny:

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When I last went to bootcamp, Iestyn and Cat brought their kids along (for obvious reasons), so it’s not like it’s particularly child-unfriendly. Depending on how much Welsh your daughter speaks, she’d probably get on just fine.

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Hi Jenny, if you would like to know how we set out organising our trip you can always PM me. Happy to help, in fact that goes for anyone else too! :grinning:

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Diolch pawb - lots to think about!
Iona will only be 4 in Feb and has been brought up in an english-speaking household so I would worry that she would spoil it for others a bit.
I will probably just find a wee place somewhere and try it the two of us
Unless anyone else with wee ones fancies it?..

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What sort of interactions do you have with her in Welsh at the moment?

It might be a good idea to build a few ‘we do this stuff with these words’ structures into her daily routine before hauling her off somewhere and saying strange things to her…:wink:

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The house in Dolgellau is back on AirB&B, if you were interested. I guess finding some people to share it may work. I think Welsh for adults sometimes put on family days. You might be able to time it around one of those. She may be fine with Elliw and Gwenllian. If you could get some basic interactions under your belt as Aran suggested. When we lived in Fiji, our house girl, did all the basics day to day instructions with my daughter in Fijian. We all picked the, up in the end.

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At the moment we mostly read books and sing together. We also talk about numbers/colours/favourites in welsh.
But otherwise my welsh is not really good enough to do much else at the moment.

Why not see if you can map out one very small (but useful) exchange as a starting point? Something like:

Wyt ti isio rhywbeth i’w fwyta?
Yndw/nac ydw.
Beth wyt ti isio?

Then once you’ve used that often enough for it to be pretty automatic for both of you, choose another everyday interaction and build a little Welsh exchange into it…

I think of it - in fact, I’ve just realised that I think of child-rearing in general - as though you were trying to build a reliable little radio control device. Once you can deal with food, dressing, undressing, toilet, bath, hugs and kisses in Welsh, your radio control is shaping up well, and she’d have a lot of familiar territory if she did find herself with a bunch of Welsh speakers around her… :sunny:

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OK I am going to try that -food/mealtimes first.
Just having a bit of a wobble because we had planned for her to go to a welsh-medium school. Now she is staying at home welsh is the one thing I really feel she is going to miss out on

For what it’s worth, I don’t think there are any tougher gigs than trying to make the right decisions for your kids - and I think you just have to accept that you can’t make everything perfect - but if you get the whole love/food thing right, then they’ll be able to go after whatever matters most to them in their own time… :sunny:

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Hi just wondered if anyone is interested in a three day get together Bootcamp in Bala sometime this spring /summer. some of my friends in my Welsh group ( Norfolk) are interested and I am thinking about the posibility of staying in the Backpackers Hostel in Bala or Bryn y Groes.

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Hi John,

If it includes a weekend I may be interested in joining you. Perhaps you let me know when you have more details, you can catch me here or FB.

Andy :smile:

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sure a_jay. I’m pretty ok as I can get the weekends off if I request them a few weeks beforehand. If you can give me an idea of which weekends suit you I’m sure I could fix for myself. It would be great to meet up after the Tresaith bootcamp in 2014.

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I’m interested. Just so long as there’s scrabble, juggling, and many poorly sign posted destinations accessible only via a network of tiny, tiny back country roads that have probably never seen a car.

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excellent, I know loads of roads like that around Bala. I know the area very well now and a lot of interesting places to visit and walk. Just let me have an idea of weekends suitable in spring /summer you might get free. As I say i’ll go with the flow. Anyway how’s things with you ? Still think about that absolutely briliant bootcamp in July… and I’ve still got the ‘Tomo’ sticker in my car. Welsh goes on from strength to strengh here in East Anglia… Lots of amazing meetups and fantastic fun. You get to anymeetups in Blackpool are yet?

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